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MUMMY is the term that is generally applied to the body of a human being, animal, bird, fish, or reptile, which has been preserved by artificial means, and it has been commonly but wrongly used to describe human bodies that have been merely dried by the sun. The word is neither a corruption of the ancient Egyptian word for a preserved body, nor of the more modern Coptic form of the hieroglyphic name. The word "mummy" is found in Byzantine Greek (povpía, póμov), and in Latin, and indeed in almost all European languages. It appears in Latin about A.D. 1000. See Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites Buch, Leipzig, 1890, p. 349. It is derived from the Arabic, "bitumen," a word that in its original Persian form meant "wax." The Persian and Arabic word for mummy is, which means a body preserved “by wax or bitumen." The Syriac-speaking people called the substance used in making mummies "Mûmyâ," Koo, the Greeks TITTάσpaλTOS, and the Persians call a drug used in medicine. The celebrated Arabic physician Ibn Bêtâr (died A.H. 646), quoting Dioscorides,1 who lived in the first century of our era, says that Mumia is found in the country called Apollonia, and that it flows

1 Materia Medica (ed. Kühn, in Medicorum Graecorum Opera, tom. XXV, Leipzig, 1829, p. 101).

down with water from the "lightning mountains," and being thrown by the water on the sides of the water-courses, becomes hard and thick, and that it has a smell like that of pitch. Having further quoted the article by Dioscorides on Pittasphaltus, he adds, "What I say on this subject is as follows: The name múmia se is given to the drug of which mention has just been made, and to that which is called 'Bitumen of Judæa,', and to

which is found in great الموميا القبور the mamia of the tombs

quantities in Egypt, and which is nothing else than a mixture which the Byzantine Greeks used formerly for embalming their dead, in order that the dead bodies might remain in the state in which they were buried, and experience neither decay nor change. Bitumen of Judæa is the substance which is obtained from the Asphaltites Lake, 'Abd al-Latîf1 mentions that he saw mûmîa, or bitumen, which had been taken out of the skulls and stomachs of mummies sold in the towns, and he adds, "I bought three heads

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ولقد اشتريت ثلثة اروس ,filled with it for half an Egyptian dirham and says that it varies very littleمملوة منه بنصف درهم مصرى

from mineral pitch, for which it can be substituted if one takes the trouble to procure it.

About three or four hundred years ago Egyptian mummy formed one of the ordinary drugs in apothecaries' shops. The trade in mummy was carried on chiefly by Jews, and as early as the XIIth century a physician called Al-Magar was in the habit of prescribing mummy to his patients. It was said to be good for bruises and wounds. After a time, for various reasons, the supply of genuine mummies ran short, and the Jews were obliged to manufacture them. They procured the bodies of all the criminals that were executed in gaols, and of people who had died in hospitals, Christians and others. They filled the bodies with bitumen and stuffed the limbs with the same substance; this done, they bound them up tightly and exposed them to the heat of the sun. By this means they made them look like old mummies. In the year 1564 a physician called Guy de la Fontaine made an attempt to see the stock of the mummies of the chief merchant in mummies at Alexandria, and he discovered that they were made from the bodies of slaves and others who had died of the most loathsome diseases. The traffic in mummies as a drug was stopped in a curious manner. A Jew at Damietta who traded in mummies had a Christian slave who was treated with great harshness by him because he would not consent to become a Jew. Finally, when the ill-treatment became so severe that he could bear it no longer, the slave went to the Pasha and informed him what his

1 See 'Abd al-Latif, Relation de l'Égypte (tr. by De Sacy, Paris, 1810, p. 273), and Abdollatiphi Historiae Aegypti Compendium (ed. White, Oxford, 1810, p. 150).

master's business was.

The Jew was speedily thrown into prison, and only obtained his liberty by payment of 300 pieces of gold. Every Jewish trader in mummy was seized by the local governor of the place where he lived, and money was extorted from him. The trade in mummy, being hampered by this arbitrary tax, soon languished, and finally died out entirely.1

The common word for treating a body with medicaments and

bandaging it up in mummy form is uta,STU,

and an embalmer was called utu,. Other words were

setekh, log or seṭekh,

Δ

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the former means literally "to embalm," and the latter "to wrap up in bandages." But qes may be a shortened form of qeres, which generally means the mummy and coffin and all the funerary equipment. The word K&ce seems to mean "he who buries," or undertaker. The Coptic forms of are KEC, KHC, Kwc, kwwc, kwwce, and they were used by the Copts to translate the Greek ενταφιασμός, ταφή, ἐνταφιάζειν, θάπτειν, etc. ; the word

Δ

ròλwn, "mummy," is also given by Kircher, Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta, Rome, 1643, p. 183, at the foot. The mummifier was called редких; compare ovog &тких я пісана пхе редкос2= καὶ ἐνεταφίασαν οἱ ἐνταφιασταὶ τὸν Ἰσραήλ.

The knowledge of the way in which the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead is obtained from the works of Greek historians, and from the examination of mummies that has been made by surgeons and anatomists during the last 150 years. According to Herodotus (II, 85), "When in a family a man of any consideration dies, all the females of that family besmear their heads and faces with mud, and then leaving the body in the house, they wander about the city, and beat themselves, having their clothes girt up, and exposing their breasts, and all their relations accompany them. On their part the men beat themselves, being girt up, in like manner. When they have done this, they carry out the body to be embalmed. There are persons who are appointed for this very purpose; they, when the dead body is brought to them, show to the bearers wooden models of corpses, made exactly like by painting. And they show that which they say is the most expensive manner of embalming, the name of which I do not think it right to mention on such an occasion; they then show the second, which is inferior and less expensive; and then the third, which is the cheapest. Having explained them all, they learn from them in what way they wish

1 Pettigrew on Mummies, p. 4.

2 Lagarde, Der Pentateuch Koptisch, Gen. 1, 2.

3 Lagarde, Librorum Vet. Test. Canon, Gen. 1, 2, p. 51.

the body to be prepared; then the relations, when they have agreed on the price, depart; but the embalmers remaining in the workshops thus proceed to embalm. In the most expensive manner, first they draw out the brains through the nostrils with an iron hook, taking part of it out in this manner, the rest by the infusion of drugs. Then with a sharp Ethiopian stone they make an incision in the side, and take out all the bowels; and having cleansed the abdomen and rinsed it with palm-wine, they next sprinkle it with pounded perfumes. Then having filled the belly with pure myrrh pounded, and cassia, and other perfumes, frankincense excepted, they sew it up again; and when they have done this, they steep it in natron, leaving it under for 70 days; for a longer time than this it is not lawful to steep it. At the expiration of the 70 days they wash the corpse, and wrap the whole body in bandages of flaxen cloth, smearing it with gum, which the Egyptians commonly use instead of glue. After this the relations, having taken the body back again, make a wooden case in the shape of a man, and having made it, they enclose the body; and thus, having fastened it up, they store it in a sepulchral chamber,1 setting it upright against the wall. In this manner they prepare the bodies that are embalmed in the most expensive way.

"Those who, avoiding great expense, desire the middle way, they prepare in the following manner. When they have charged their syringes with oil made from cedar, they fill the abdomen of the corpse without making any incision or taking out the bowels, but inject it at the fundament; and having prevented the injection from escaping, they steep the body in natron for the prescribed number of days, and on the last day they let out from the abdomen the oil of cedar which they had before injected, and it has such power that it brings away the intestines and vitals in a state of dissolution; the natron

1 Compare ταριχεύει δὲ ὁ Αἰγύπτιος· οὗτος μέν γελέγω δ' ἰδών—ξηράνας τὸν VEKPOV ÚVOELTVOν Kai EvμжÓτην Éпoσarо. Lucian, De Luctu, § 21 (ed. Dindorf, νεκρὸν ξύνδειπνον καὶ ξυμπότην ἐποιήσατο. Paris, 1867, p. 569).

Αἰγύπτιοι δὲ τὰ ἔντερα ἐξελόντες ταριχεύουσιν αὐτούς, καὶ σὺν ἑαυτοῖς ὑπερ is exovou. Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoniarum Institutionum, lib. III, cap. 24 (ed. J. A. Fabricius, Leipzig, 1718, p. 184).

Mortuos limo obliti plangunt: nec cremare aut fodere fas putant: verum arte medicatos intra penetralia collocant. Pomponius Mela, lib. I, cap. 9 (ed. Gronov., Leyden, 1782, p. 62).

Aegyptia tellus

Claudit odorato post funus stantia saxo
Corpora, et a mensis exsanguem haud separat umbram.

Silius Italicus, Punicorum lib. XIII, 11. 474–476
(ed. H. Occioni, Turin, 1889).

Balsama succo unguentaque mira feruntur

Tempus in aeternum sacrum servantia corpus.

Corippi, De laudibus Justini, lib. III, 11. 22–25 (ed. Antwerp, 1581, p. 4).

dissolves the flesh, and nothing of the body remains but the skin and the bones. When they have done this they return the body without any further operation.

"The third method of embalming is this, which is used only for the poorer sort: having thoroughly rinsed the abdomen in syrmæa, they steep it with natron for the 70 days, and then deliver it to be carried away."

According to Genesis 1, 3, the embalming of Jacob occupied 40 days, but the period of mourning was 70 days. From Egyptian documents it is known that the length of the period from the death of a man to his burial varied; in one case the embalming occupied 16 days, the bandaging 35 days, and the burial 70 days, i.e., 121 days in all. In a second case the embalming occupied 66 days, preparations for burial 4 days, and the burial 26 days; in all 96 days. Elsewhere we are told that the embalming lasts 70 or 80 days, and the burial ten months.2

The account given by Diodorus (I, 91) agrees with that of Herodotus in many particulars, but some additional details are given. According to it, if any man died, all his relatives and friends threw dust or mud on their heads, and went round about through the town uttering cries of grief as long as the body remained unburied; during the interval between the death and the burial, they abstained from the use of baths and wine, they partook of no choice foods, and they put not on fine apparel. The methods of embalming were three in number; the most expensive, the less expensive, and the poorest of all. The first method cost one talent of silver, about £250; the second twenty minae, about £60; and the third cost very little indeed. The people who practise the art of embalming belong to a class of men in whose families this profession is hereditary, and they set down in writing a statement of the various methods of embalming practised by them and the cost of each, and ask the relatives of the dead man to decide upon the method to be adopted. When this question has been settled, the embalmers take the body into their charge, and they hand it to those who are fully acquainted with the process of embalming. The first of these, called the "scribe " (ypaμμateús), makes a mark on the left side of the body, which is laid upon the ground, to indicate where the incision is to be made. Next, a man, called the "ripper up" (πapaσxiστns), with an Ethiopian stone (λίθον Αιθιοπικόν) makes a cut in the side lengthwise of the size indicated by the scribe. Having done this, he flees away in all haste, pursued by his assistants, who hurl after him pieces of stone and call down curses, that vengeance may come upon him for this crime; for the Egyptians hold in abomination anyone who wounds or commits an act of violence upon the human body. The embalmers

1 Cary's translation, pp. 126, 127.

2 For the authorities see Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites Buch, p. 358.

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